


Terms and Conniptions May Apply

by AceofIntuition



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, No Romance, like the nooses and hanging minions and things, mostly about hat kid and snatcher with some minion shenanigans on the side, or dying, otherwise known as "HK is determined to become BFFs with Snatcher whether he likes it or not", post CH 3 Boss Fight, pre-finale, silliness, slow burn enemies to family, snatcher learns to not be a jerkface, suicide imagery (the hung minions in Subcon in the game), the usual subcon weirdness / creepiness, theyre uh not actually dead tho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 01:29:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15304422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceofIntuition/pseuds/AceofIntuition
Summary: Snatcher is bound and determined that he is not going to become Hat Kid's "BFF," no matter what that stupid, invalid contract says. She'd humiliated him, made a fool out of him in front of his minions, and most importantly, beaten the snot out of him. He wanted nothing to do with her beyond her getting the heck out of Subcon....Hat Kid is sure he'll get over it. Sooner or later.They're gonna be best friends. She just knows it.





	1. Contractual Indignations

**Author's Note:**

> This is, as noted by the tags, an exploratory fic of Snatcher and Hat Kid's journey from enemies to friends, taking place between the end of chapter 3 and the finale. Expect some fluff, some angst, some hurt and some comfort, and a whole lot of silliness, all wrapped up in Subcon's signature weird. Actually, make that A Hat In Time's signature weird, in general.
> 
> Thank you to Gears for Breakfast for the creation of such a lovely game, and to Junebird24 and PipesFlowForeverandEver for basically collabing on every aspect of this short of actually writing the damn thing.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snatcher does some redecorating. Hat Kid hangs out with a new friend.

She kept coming back.  
  
That was possibly the most infuriating thing to him. Even more so than the actual loss itself, which was no small humiliation either. It was the fact that no matter what he _did_ , he had no way of getting her to leave. She’d straightened up to his threats and intimidation astonishingly quickly, and then… Well, when he’d gotten frustrated with that, he’d tried to pound her into the ground.  
  
And it hadn’t worked.  
  
What even was she, like, five? It should have _worked!_ He should have reduced her to—nothing more than a smear on the cobblestones!  
  
Utterly and completely humiliating. Part of him hadn’t even wanted to show his face around the forest for a bit after that, but he knew what his minions would think of it, and he couldn’t chance anyone else around here forgetting who was really in charge. He especially couldn’t have that witch in the manor thinking she might have an opportunity to expand her turf. So instead he’d made _sure_ that one _lousy_ loss to that little brat didn’t change his title as owner of this forest, no matter what anyone else thought. And he’d made sure of it _loudly_.  
  
A couple more minions had ended up in the trees. They hadn’t done anything to deserve it, not particularly, just been a little slow when he’d thought that he’d heard some snickering behind him. He would roar and whirl around and snatch up whichever one was the last to move and yank down one of the nooses and bam, forest redecorated.  
  
If they were particularly lucky, he’d get them down after a little while. But for the time being, he’d been inclined to sit in his tree and sulk. He’d truly believed then that since she’d gotten what she wanted, she wouldn’t come back.  
  
Oh, and what a _fool_ he had been to think so, hadn’t he?  
  
He’d known the moment she set foot back into the forest. Of course he’d known—he’d watched that star fall and oh, how he’d prayed. Not her. Anything but her. Some new idiot that he could suck the life out of and feel confident in himself again. Please—  
  
The cheery little face and “Hi, Snatcher!” and a tiny wave tell him otherwise. He sinks lower into his chair and holds his book up, refusing to answer. Intimidation hadn’t worked, trickery hadn’t worked, outright killing hadn’t worked—he’d never been very good at ignoring, but by this point, it seemed to be the only thing he had left.  
  
She moves on, and Snatcher watches with narrowed, burning eyes as she skips off into _his_ forest.  
  
It’s equally infuriating that he doesn’t understand why.  
  
 ————  
  
She kept coming back.  
  
Oh, she was well aware that Snatcher didn’t want her there—of course she was! As if his attempts to kill her could misinterpreted as anything else. She just, ah, didn’t care. It was his own fault, really. If he hadn’t stamped the contract first, who knows what would’ve happened?  
   
But he had, and he’d underestimated how clever Hat Kid was. And now, she had determined, she was either going to harass him until the end of time or… somehow make friends with him. The latter would be preferable, of course, because the former would get old quick… Even if he did deserve a bit of teasing. Really, he needed it, she reasoned; sometimes he could just be so arrogant. Not that that didn’t describe a number of the various characters she’d run into around these parts.  
  
He’d get over it soon, she was sure. But for now… For now she was content to leave him be and hunt around. Technically, if he asked, she was just making double sure that there weren’t any more time pieces left in his woods. She knows what he’d say to that—”Kiddo, don’t you think I maybe _know_ everything that happens in _MY_ forest? There aren’t any LEFT! Just leave already!”—but he doesn’t ask, doesn’t even give her the time of day, and so she doesn’t need to justify herself. While his lack of biting response seems a bit unusual, she shrugs it off and heads out to explore the woods a bit more thoroughly.  
  
Subcon forest was probably one of her favorite places to explore. All the glowing stuff was like candy for her eyes, and while it had its dangers, she had found over time that the forest itself was a lot like Snatcher was. Which was to say, all bark and no bite. Or… very little bite, she amends, whacking a spider over its head and sending it scuttling back, hissing. Just a bad puppy that needed her guidance, was all. The forest had a lot of neat gimmicks and made a lot of noise, rather like a certain noodly demon she knew, but ultimately? Not much of a threat to her at all.  
  
Most of it, anyway. A large, never melting ice crystal some distance off catches her eye, and she shudders. Yes, one part of Subcon Forest had been… a very serious threat indeed. She had no desire to go back to the Manor at all, unlike the rest of this spooky little grove. She had no reason to. Unlike the rest of the forest, that Manor was—sad, and cold, and the only thing that lived in it was really mean, and so she really didn’t see any point in returning—  
  
A red glow catches the corner of her eye and she whirls around, heart racing. But it’s just a far-off mushroom.    
  
It’s ok, it’s fine, she’s fine. She’d combed every inch of that mansion, and at any rate, Snatcher claimed the entire forest as his turf—the manor no exception. She had a feeling that if there was another time piece in the manor, he’d tell her just to gleefully watch her have to navigate that awful place a second time. She turns away from the ice and heads for the mushroom instead.  
  
No, most of the forest had never been too terribly unkind to Hat Kid. A nuisance, to be sure—the headless statue had certainly scared the bejeebus out of her the first time it had moved. Snatcher, while not generally attempting to thwart her, had never been particularly inclined to make her life any easier either. But the dwellers and minions alike never made any attempts to attack her, the latter even giving her directions and such a fair amount of time… Despite their odd appearance, they were some of the nicer folks that she had met traveling around these tiny planets. Certainly the nicest in Subcon. Sure they were sarcastic and sometimes mischievous, but then, so was she. And while some of them occasionally made…interesting remarks about pain and injury, they’d never made any actual attempts to kill her, unlike their blowhard of a boss.  
  
Hat Kid glances up and catches sight of one of them among the trees, and shudders again. If only the forest were kinder to them. There was another thing that she didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about. Who had placed them up there? She had wondered if perhaps those nooses that talked had caught them, but then, she’d never had one try to grab her while she was down here. And they seemed…awfully cordial, for nooses that could magically speak. A little creepy, but no more so than the minions, really, and well, she supposed if you were a noose… your job was to hang things. She still tried to avoid them where possible.  
  
But if not the nooses… She didn’t suppose that the Subconites hung each other, that didn’t seem to make any sense. _She_ didn’t seem to leave her mansion, and seemed more inclined to ice things than hang them anyway, which left few candidates. The only one that seemed to have the ability was Snatcher, and that…troubled her. But it lined up with him, she supposed. Popping off the head of the last guy, and all that.  
  
She‘s always careful to avoid them as she hops around the upper canopy of the forest, unable to shake the unease that comes with seeing them. She does the same now as she hookshots to let one of the nooses pull her up; she lands on a fluffy bed of leaves and jumps over to the next, where a minion hangs limply in the grasp of another rope. Its outfit flaps listlessly in the breeze as its body sways back and forth slightly.  
  
Just as she’s about to leap to the next branch, though, she pauses. There’s a sound that she hasn’t heard before, and when she turns around, she realizes that it seems to be coming from… the minion’s body?  
  
It sounds like…snoring. Hat Kid frowns in uncertainty and, after another moments’ pause, steels herself.  
  
Then she pokes it with her umbrella.  
  
The Subconite snorts, their single eye shooting open and their body wiggling around as the noose starts to complain. Hat Kid jumps back in alarm, her eyes going wide, before scrambling back up. “You’re alive?!”  
  
“BOSS?!” The minion exclaims excitedly, wiggling around as though looking for him. Hat Kid wraps her arms around their struggling body and pulls them over to her leafy little platform. When the noose protests, she snaps the hookshot’s claws at it menacingly, and it reluctantly lets go, slipping off of the other’s neck. “Wow, this was so—oh.” They pause. “You’re not the boss.”  
  
Hat kid shakes her head. “Snatcher?”  
  
At his name, the minion’s eye brightens considerably. “Yeah, the Boss!” they say, positively beaming, as Hat Kid’s expression only grows more confused. “Did he send you here to come let me down, kid?”  
  
She shakes her head again. Their expression falls.  
  
“Oh. Well, thanks, but maybe you ought to put me back? The Boss doesn’t like it when we get out earlier than we’re supposed to.”  
  
“I’m not gonna re-hang you!” Hat Kid protests, twisting her umbrella anxiously. “I can’t do that!”  
  
The Subconite tilts their head curiously. “Why not?” they ask.  
  
“Because!” Hat Kid insists. “Because… Because you guys have been nice to me and I don’t wanna murder! Not anyone else, anyway.”  
  
To her surprise, the minion laughs. “Murder, newbie? Don’t you know we’re spirits? We’re already dead!”  
  
Well… There was that. He had a point, she supposed, but that only made that all the more confusing.  
  
“Then… Then why?” she asks. “But—”  
  
The minion shrugs. “Boss puts us up there sometimes when we don’t do well or when he’s in a bad mood. It’s not dead, just kinda boring. You get a nice view but there’s nothing much to do. Most of the time we just go to sleep until he lets us back down.”  
  
“….R-Really?”  
  
“Yeah, sure, look.” The minion turns, raising a hand to help project their voice. “HEY, DENNIS!” Some ways off, one of the other hanging minions opens its eye, and they wriggle around to look in their general direction.  
  
“HEY, BILLY!” they call back, much to Hat Kid’s bemusement. “WHAT IS IT?”  
  
“NOTHING MUCH, JUST WANTED TO SAY HI!” Billy calls back. Dennis’ eye falls, half-lidded in annoyance, and they shout back something about their sleep being interrupted before the eye closes back down to a slit. Billy turns back to Hat Kid, jerking their thumb in Dennis’ general direction. “See?”  
  
Hat Kid stares, trying to comprehend. She’s…fairly sure that’s better than actually being hanged, but it was still…. _ugh. Snatcher._ She groans. “That’s not good!” she yells, gesturing widely with her hands.  
  
“Well, sometimes if we relay messages for him he lets us back down faster,” the minion adds helpfully.  
  
“Still not good!” Hat Kid shakes her head, looking over to Dennis, and prepares to jump off. The minion’s huge eye seems to grow only that much wider.  
  
“Hey hey—wait, where are you going?!” They yelp, tugging on her cape. She rolls her eyes, points to Dennis, and makes a “snap-snap” with her umbrella like before.  
  
“Kid, you can’t! That’ll just make Snatcher mad, and he’s already in a bad mood—”  
  
“Oh, I’ll show him mad,” Hat Kid mutters. Then she refocuses on what he’d said. “He’s in a bad mood?”  
  
“Well, last I checked,” Billy amends hastily. “I’ve been up here for a couple days! But the Boss didn’t take so kindly to losing to a little kid like you.”  
  
“’m the same size as you,” she informs them bluntly, and they shrug. “Anyways, if he thinks the first time was bad, wait ‘til I whoop his butt again for this—” She emphasizes her point by smacking the air with her umbrella.  
  
“Kid, please!” Billy exclaims. “Yeesh. You can’t just fight him into submission, you know? The Boss is too proud for that! Besides, most of us don’t mind getting a good nap in once and a while anyway…”  
  
“By hanging?!” Hat Kid yelps.  
  
“It’s like I said, we’re spirits. Shadows! Doesn’t hurt.”  
  
Hat Kid huffs. Billy was wrong, obviously; she’d already fought Snatcher into submission once and she was sure she could do it again. Admittedly, the first time hadn’t been exactly planned, but it had all turned out alright. Still… The Subconite was forcing her to reconsider.  
  
“What, then?” she asks, falling with a “flump” into their leafy perch.  
  
“Just give it a few days’ rest, kid. The boss’ll come around and let them down, he always does! You can wait that long, right?”  
  
Reluctantly she nods. She could wait that long. But if Snatcher didn’t let them down within the next few days…


	2. Adversarial Proceedings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hat Kid talks to a wall. Snatcher also talks to a wall.

She returns to Subcon Forest every day after that. Billy waits for her off in the village, just out of the reach of Snatcher’s prying eyes, who sits in his tree and broods over his dumb book. Hat Kid stubbornly continues to greet him every time she arrives, and he stubbornly continues to ignore her. She’s beginning to find it a bit frustrating, truth be told—even his snapping at her was better than nothing. This was just—petty! She kicks her feet against the tree stump she’s sitting on and blasts another spider with her umbrella. Even its exaggerated wailing doesn’t seem to lift her spirits, which grow lower and lower each time Snatcher refuses to acknowledge her.  
  
And to make matters worse, as far as she can tell, he hasn’t let down any of the Subconites, either. The next day she’d taken Billy around with her and they counted the amount they could see—it was something like twenty of them or so. They’d pointed out the names of each of them, too. Hat Kid wasn’t sure how Billy managed to tell them all apart… But it was nice to have them around since they could. She’d pull them up on her scooter and they’d zoom around the forest. The number would remain the same, Billy would update a couple of them on the forest’s happenings, and then she’d wander off to find something else to do for the day.  
  
For a while, she was able to find things to occupy her time with. Snatcher never bothered to ask where she was going or why she kept coming back, so she didn’t need to pretend that there could be time pieces elsewhere in the forest. Of course, she wasn’t a hundred percent sure—she kept an eye out wherever she went, it just wasn’t her first priority. First priority was having fun.  
  
Or at least, it was supposed to be. And for a while it was! Billy would come with her sometimes and talk about the forest, or tell her some history, or introduce her to the other Subconites. But a part of her kept waiting for Snatcher to show up in some form. She’d even walked right into one of his traps in the hopes that he would show his stupid purple face. He hadn’t responded; now here they were, over a week later, and he still hadn’t even said a word to her!  
  
That was it. He couldn’t ignore her forever, Hat Kid decided, and he couldn’t leave his minions hanging forever. It was going to be one or the other… and then eventually both. Billy follows her a little ways as she marches back up to Snatcher’s tree, but stops once it’s within sight, leaving her to go up to it alone.  
  
Snatcher is curled up in his chair, reading a book open in his lap.  She eyes it warily, then eyes him. He makes no response to her presence, as usual.  
  
“Hi, Snatcher!” she chirps, also as per usual. He doesn’t respond to that either. Not a word, not a glance. Not so much of a twitch in his glowing yellow eyes or mouth. He definitely wasn’t doing his part to fulfill his end of the bargain, she had to admit. So much for upholding legal contracts, right? That _was_ kind of his track record… Then again, Hat Kid recognized that you could be completely mad at someone and still be BFFs. She should have been more specific in her amendments to his terms, but she’d been flying by the seat of her pants at the time.  
  
No matter. She’d just change her tactics. She tries a couple more questions; generic things, asking him what he’s reading and what he’s been doing lately. He doesn’t respond to those either. “I’m gonna go exploring now! Bye, Snatcher,” she says after, as cheerfully as if he had actually answered. And then she hops out of the tree, summons her scooter, and takes it to the farthest corner of his forest.  
  
There, she finds a minion hanging. With a combination of talking to the noose and threatening it with her hookshot, she convinces it to let the Subconite down. Jerry, she thought she remembered Billy saying their name was. Or maybe Jordan? Whatever. When they ask her why she’s done it, she shrugs and says that Snatcher told her to.  
  
And every day after that, she continues to talk to him when she first arrives. And when he doesn’t respond, she goes and finds another minion to free.    
  
————  
  
Contrary to Hat Kid’s belief, Snatcher was well aware the moment she’d let Billy down from the noose. Of course he was aware—he was aware of everything that happened in _his_ forest! All the time!  
  
But he’d resolved to wait her out, and that was what he was going to do. He didn’t much terribly care if she got them all down, anyway. It would save him the trouble of going back later, or worse, forgetting about Ricky for two months all over again after placing him well out of eyesight of his tree. It was just… by the time she started letting the others down, it had already been a _week_. He’d _expected_ when she’d gotten the second one that her mission that day would be to free all of his little minions, but she hadn’t. She’d only freed him, not any of the others. And Snatcher didn’t much care for being wrong. In fact, it seemed to be becoming something of a _trend_ where that little brat was concerned.  
  
Then she’d let one more down the next day, and he’d awaited the rest. She must’ve lost her nerve the day before, right? Right? Apparently not. Instead, she set a surprisingly slow precedent of letting a single minion down each day. Well, that wasn’t his problem, Snatcher reasoned, remaining stubbornly budged up in his arm chair. He was going to put it out of his mind. He did not care what the brat _did_ , only that she would eventually get bored and _leave_.  
  
Or so he continued to tell himself. But the puzzle of it was infuriating. It didn’t make any sense for her to be working at such a slow pace, not when everything else about her had been fast, fast, faster. What was she waiting for? Was she doing it to annoy _him_?  
  
And every day that greeting, too. Her stubbornness would have been commendable if it hadn’t been so annoying. How on Earth did she have so much patience, anyway? She was just a kid! Granted, it had been a long time since Subcon had had… well, _any_ children running about, but Snatcher was pretty sure that he remembered patience not being a virtue of most kids.  
  
Then again… Most kids wouldn’t have survived having a monster many times their size try to pop their head off, either, let alone then beat said monster black and blue by using his own attacks against him. They’ve been playing this game for almost two weeks when Snatcher comes to this realization, watching her skip off one morning. Hat Kid was not like most kids. Perhaps… perhaps he couldn’t count on her to leave eventually, after all. She could continue to show up in his forest every day for all eternity and there would be _nothing that he could do about it_. And wasn’t that a terrifying thought. Someone capable of being as stubborn as him? A kid, no less?  
  
He tries his best to ignore it, but it keeps creeping back in, especially when she shows her face each morning. So a couple days later, when she’s heading out—presumably to free her thirteenth minion, by his count—he slips his book into his chair and sneaks out after her.  
  
Hat Kid takes her time moving through the forest, unmindful of the shadow without a caster trailing along the ground some couple dozen feet behind. She bounces between some mushrooms, giggling lightly, hookshots her way up into the canopy for a little while, and gives a wide berth to all the statues in the forest. He follows along almost lazily. Truth be told, she’s not exactly causing a real disturbance to the forest… He still doesn’t want her around, though.  
  
Eventually, she pauses to look up to the canopy, and a somewhat bored shadow follows her line of sight. If he’s correct, she’s finally found another minion hanging up in the trees, and is assessing how to reach them.  
  
“HEY!!” Hat Kid shouts after a deep breath, and Snatcher flickers in surprise. Yeesh, he hadn’t realized the kid had such a set of lungs on her. She’d always been so quiet whenever they’d talked—who knew? His curiosity further piqued, Snatcher slithers his way up a tree to watch the spectacle.  
  
So she tried talking to them first. It seemed she’d had luck with this particular tactic in the past, “asking nicely.” And—oh, using his name in order to be more convincing? How very…clever. He is neither amused nor impressed at her attempts to convince the noose that he, Snatcher, had sent her. For whatever reason though (perhaps the presence of Snatcher himself, not too far off from Hat Kid) her usual words fail on the enchanted rope, and he watches her stomp her foot in frustration.  
  
The minion was not immediately reachable by any of the nearby trees, and for a moment, he feels smug over his victory. It takes him all of a second or two to remember that Hat Kid had a tendency to create her own victories where they should be impossible, and that was about the same amount of time as it takes for her to decide on a solution.  
  
Snatcher’s shadowy form slips out of view as Hat Kid goes running past, only to peer back and watch her hookshot up to one lantern, and then from there to a second and a third. There is nowhere to go from the third one, but she re-angles herself to the direction of the minion, and—surely she can’t be—?  
  
At the peak of her swing, hat kid lets go of the lantern, tumbling forward through the air and smacking straight the minion themself. They careen wildly together, the minion letting out a very distinct shriek of surprise at being woken so abruptly, but she manages to cling to them until the rope finally stops moving. Sensing the rest of her plan, Snatcher moves from the tree and runs around the edge of the clearing in a circle with one hand, causing little purple vines to crack through the surface of the forest floor. Unnoticed by the pair above, he finishes as their wild swinging is beginning to slow; then Hat Kid snips the noose with her umbrella, breaking a very tedious enchantment that was going to be a pain for him to replace. She and the minion fall the rest of the distance, her umbrella snapping open a few feet above impact. They float the rest of the way down, and as soon as Hat Kid’s tiny little foot hits the ground, the trap activates.  
  
Snatcher savors her gasp as the purple walls spring up. The minion’s already-enormous eye seems to grow even larger, and Snatcher emerges up out of the ground behind them, taking his time to reach his full height.  
  
“Well, well…well,” Snatcher drawls. “You know, kiddo, I gotta say—I just don’t _get it_.”  
  
It’s to his surprise that instead of looking scared or upset like he’d hoped, Hat Kid offers him a beaming smile. In fact, she looks positively delighted to see him. Had the past couple weeks of silence really been so ineffectual on her? His mouth curls into an impossible smirk, belying none of his underlying frustration. Hat Kid doesn’t seem bothered by this, but the minion notices his expression and slowly inches away from her. After all, the Boss’ smile was somewhat… fixed.  
  
“See, I have tried _everything_. Tried killing you myself, tried forging a new contract! I even gave back your soul _and_ your stupid time pieces, too! I’ve been—quite frankly—MORE than generous, you know! And yet... You’re still here. Weeks later. Running around, messing up _my_ forest and the way _I_ run things around here. Were you just not paying attention that day? Did you _miss it_ when I mentioned that I would be VERY DISAPPOINTED if I saw you here again?!”  
  
In response, Hat Kid digs around in her cape and pulls out one of those sparkling hourglasses from somewhere. Snatcher crosses his arms and tilts his head.  
  
“You think I’m going to believe that you’re just looking for more of your precious hourglasses?” He sneers. “You know as well as I do that you’ve already collected all of the pieces that fell in this forest. If there were any left, I’d be the _first_ to know about them, and I certainly wouldn’t be _hanging on_ to any of them just to keep YOU here! Besides—” Snatcher leans forward, thrusting one large claw in Hat Kid’s direction. “That has absolutely nothing to do with the minions you’ve been freeing, now does it?”  
  
Finally, Hat Kid’s smile falters. Still she doesn’t break eye contact with the ghost, staring up in defiance of him. “It’s not nice to hang your friends!”  
  
Snatcher lets out a low cackle. “FRIENDS? Kiddo, you’ve got it all wrong. They’re my eyes and ears around this place, my message delivery peons, my _employees_! But friends…” he growls. “No, kid. I don’t have _friends_.”  
  
Hat Kid stares up at him, her ever sunny disposition finally beginning to gather some clouds. Snatcher’s smile grows wider as he notices—finally, something to get under her impossibly impervious little skin. However, she fires back almost immediately. “What about _me?!”_  
  
“What _about_ you?” Snatcher snorts. Hat Kid glances away, crossing her own arms, and that’s when Snatcher remembers the…amendments that she had made some weeks ago. “Don’t tell me you mean those ridiculous scribbles you made to that last contract! Oh, please don’t tell me… You do mean them, don’t you.”  
  
Hat Kid doesn’t look up at him, and Snatcher’s smile curves into something decidedly more nasty. “’Be my BFF,’ was that right?” he mocks. “You couldn’t REALLY think you would change anything with that! Well, thank goodness I’m not magically bound to uphold my own contracts or anything stupid like that, huh? I know you’re just a kid, but come on!  
  
“Hate to break it to you, kiddo! Sure, you can force someone to do chores for you. You can maim someone, torture them, even _kill them_ … But you can’t just _force_ someone to be your best friend,” Snatcher says, his malicious, yellow, fanged grin growing even wider. “And you and I?  
  
“We are _never, ever, EVER_ going to be friends.”  
  
“In fact—” Anything else he has to say is cut off as Hat Kid very dramatically removes one of her badges from her cape and makes a show of pinning it on her hat mid-sentence. He pauses briefly to squint; he’d bought badges from the badge seller too, of course, that was where he got his rentals from... Was that the _Mumble_ Badge? Oh, for crying— “Kid, do you really think that badge is going—”  
  
“I can’t hear you!” Hat Kid yells, angrily flopping to the ground with an exaggerated “flump.” Her cape flutters around her as she leans back on her hands.  
  
“We’re still not going to be friends,” Snatcher snarls. “You can’t just ignore this and expect me to—”  
  
Hat Kid shakes her head.  
  
“Just give up and submit to what you feel like—”  
  
She mimes cupping a hand at her ear to help her hear better.  
  
“You don’t decide things here!—”  
  
Hat Kid places both hands over her ears this time, rolling her eyes in exaggerated fashion.  
  
“THIS IS MY FOREST AND I SWEAR I WILL KICK YOUR TINY—”  
  
“BOSS!”  
  
Snatcher snarls wordlessly and whirls on the minion that Hat Kid had rescued. “WHAT, YOU LITTLE CRETIN?”  
  
The minion points soundlessly out, away from the two of them, and Snatcher turns his gaze to the edges of his environment. If he squints beyond the edges of the illusory magic, he can still see the forest just outside. He spots one little glowing eye—then two, then three. Not the “souls” he had floating around for dramatic effect, but the actual eyes of his minions, who are slowly gathering around the bubble to watch what’s happening inside.  
  
His yelling must have been terribly loud to have broken through his magic’s confines. He whips his head to the other side, spotting more minions, just barely visible through the purple fog. Then he turns his gaze back at Hat Kid, and his mouth affixes in a scowl. So she wanted to play drama, huh? Well, so could he. True to his name, he snatches the top hat straight off her head, much as he had in their fight weeks back. She yelps, reaching for it just a little too slow.  
  
“We. Are Not. Going. To Be. Friends,” Snatcher says, twitching his fingers to bring the barrier down and reveal their audience. “This is _my_ forest, _my_ rules, _kiddo_ , and it will always BE _my_ forest, _my_ rules.”  
  
Deliberately, Snatcher yanks the badge off of the hat. Both are tiny in his massive claws; he plays with it for a few seconds. Then he gives the badge a strong toss over his shoulder. “Get—”  
  
_**“Lost.”**_ And with that, the top hat follows suit even more forcefully, sailing off out of sight into the swamp. Hat Kid’s gasp is small, and yet in the utter silence of the clearing, like a pin drop. And with that, Snatcher twists and vanishes, leaving her alone but for the couple dozen minions watching anxiously from behind trees and bushes.  
  
Slowly, Hat Kid pushes herself up, and starts a slow trek out of the clearing, sniffling slightly. She tells herself she’s not going to let Snatcher make her cry over this—she’s not.  
  
But she still has to rub at her eyes with her sleeve for a moment.


	3. Petty Offenses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hat Kid gains an entourage. Snatcher sulks somewhere off-screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Momo is the wonderful little OC of junebird24 on tumblr. <3

Subcon Forest was a very pretty place.  
  
Nobody who lived here would ever deny that, but sometimes one of its residents wished that the prettiness of it all wasn’t so…. Deadly, too. Subcon’s beauty was always a bittersweet thing, see? The mushrooms glowed beautifully, but were extremely toxic to eat. The swamp’s neon-colored pool was so bright because of all the souls trapped in it, and they were always reaching out and trying to pull others in, generally making a nuisance of themselves. The warm glow on the horizon? That section of the forest was just _perpetually on fire_. The pretty decorations hanging from the trees were nooses. Nooses! Not that they were judging their boss’s sense of _arboreal decorating_ , of course, but…  
  
There was the ice, too, that never melted. Subcon wasn’t a terribly warm place, but that ice had persisted for eons.  
  
And the lanterns. Well.  
  
They weren’t _quite_ sure what was up with the lanterns yet, but given the nature of the rest of Subcon, there had to be something wrong with them. Snatcher probably powered them with souls. Or… something.  
  
Of course, none of this really mattered to the minions per say as they were spirits and thus not really affected by any of it. It didn’t bother most of them. One particular minion found themself to be the exception to the rule, however, much to the bemusement of the others. They were determined to prove that Subcon was capable of producing pretty, non-deadly things too. Which was why they were out in the middle of the forest, currently attempting to make something from the forest’s offerings.  
  
(Besides, it wasn’t like most of the minions had much better to do.)  
  
The minion wanders around the small glade they’re in currently, picking up flowers and pretty leaves and other things that they find attractive. Their ragged little cloaks don’t exactly have pocket space, so it’s a bit of a trial to hold onto everything they’ve found, but they’re managing… Sort of. A nice pebble here, a tiny mushroom there, a bit of vine hung around their neck.  
  
Eventually they take a seat in the middle of the glade and dump their haul on the ground, beginning to sort through it and figure out what they want to do with it. They have some interestingly shaped and colored rocks, some of those nice red leaves from the trees, some tiny bright blue mushrooms that never seem to lose their glow. The rocks, they consider after some time, they might discard; they’ve already built some nice pieces with rocks and scattered them about the forest, little sets of them stacked up on each other just so that they were perfectly balanced. They loved those, of course, but they felt that perhaps it was time to look beyond rocks in their artistic practices. Broaden their horizons, so to speak.  
  
They’ve also added some small ribs to the collection that they’re currently a bit uncertain about. Uncertain, of course, because they came directly from a dead thing, and their work was trying to get _away_ from that, currently, but they did add a nice shape to the overall group, and—  
  
So engrossed they were in their sorting that they failed to notice a soft whistling, or the small object falling out of the sky. They did notice, however, when it collided directly with the back of their hooded head, knocking them face-first into their little pile with a cry of surprise and pain. “Ow!”  
  
Quickly, they scramble upright, looking around the forest to see who had thrown such an object, but there is no one else in sight. Unusual, to say the least, as normally they’d expect such a throw to be accompanied by some of the less-friendly minions. They rub the back of their head and their eye lights upon a small, round, shiny _thing_ sitting in the leaves a few feet away. They wander over and pick it up, squinting in the forest’s dim light. It’s thin and circular, brown and white with a ring of silver around it. They don’t think they’ve seen anything like it, except…  
  
Well, perhaps from that odd, twitchy stranger who hung out near to Snatcher’s home. Was this a badge? Snatcher had informed them after the scooter incident that none of them were allowed to keep badges if they couldn’t be responsible with them, and that had been… Well, most of the minions. Most of them didn’t really keep pons, anyway, as they had no pocket space for them and no use for them otherwise. They weren’t even really sure what they did, not exactly, except for a few of the more curious among them that had dared to go and ask the badge seller. The rumor among the minions was that they gave you magical powers, like the ones that Snatcher had naturally. Stronger versions of some of their own abilities.  
  
They hold it carefully in their palms, debating what to do with the little disc. Snatcher hadn’t forbidden them, not—exactly, right? And magical powers… Well, that could make their art much more interesting, surely! They could be responsible. With some hesitation, they take the badge and pin it carefully on their hood.  
  
…Well, they don’t feel any different, not really. How did you activate these things, anyway? They jump around a bit, twirl, and wave their hands, trying to get something to happen—but nothing does.  
  
Hmm. Maybe one of the other minions would know how to make it work, they reason. With a glance over at their pile of collected stuff, they wander off in the direction of Subcon Village.

  
————  
  
Turns out Snatcher had a better arm on him than Hat Kid would have previously given him credit for. Sure, his limbs seemed noodly, but there was no sign of the hat or the badge as far as she could see. She’d trudged in the direction of the swamp, drying her eyes with the end of her sleeve, and pulled out her sprint hat and gone looking.  
  
Twenty minutes later, all she’d achieved was managing to thoroughly cover herself in swamp goo after narrowly escaping the mysterious spirit hands that emerged whenever you touched the surface. She’d been all around, jumping from platform to platform, up into the trees for a higher vantage point, along the edges—she was sure Snatcher had thrown it back here, somewhere, but there neither badge nor hat were anywhere in sight. The badge she could do without, potentially. She could probably buy another one from the Badge Seller eventually, although it pained her to lose it. The hat, though… That was her signature top hat. She simply couldn’t _do_ without that top hat.  
  
But here she was. She was pretty sure she’d combed the entire swamp and there was simply no trace of it. The longer she went, the more she began to worry—what if it was gone forever? She knew that it was too light to easily be sucked down in the swamp’s thick murk, but what if those spirit hand thingies had pulled it down? Even if it hadn’t, the stupid swamp was the exact same shade of purple as her hat, making it hard enough to spot already. She could have missed it just about anywhere. It could have even gone beyond the swamp, or maybe Snatcher had preformed some stupid magic thingy and made it vanish into thin air.  
  
_**Peck.** _ She just wanted her hat back. Hat Kid flops down at the edge of the swamp, kicking the surface with the heels of her boots. All she’d wanted was for Snatcher to start talking to her again, and well, look where that had landed her. He—he was right, wasn’t he? She really couldn’t force him into being her friend, no matter how hard she tried…But she wanted to believe that they could be if he’d just give her a chance. But it had been three weeks at this point, and that conversation really hammered home just how much he didn’t want to. She’d always been taught that if something didn’t work the first time, she just had to keep trying, and trying, and trying. Never give up. But this? She just didn’t know what else to do! What else _could_ she even do?!  
  
Tiredly she pulls her cape around her small frame, brushing off swamp goop that was more solid than liquid, and frowns at the landscape itself. “This swamp sucks,” she mutters, glaring at it with all the ferocity her enormous eyes can muster. Her free hand rummages around on the ground until it finds a small rock, and she chucks it into the neon purple sludge with as much force. It skips across the surface a number of times until the ooze overtakes its momentum and sucks it down.  
  
 “This forest sucks!” Hat Kid grabs another pebble from the ground. “Snatcher sucks!” With each admission, she hurls another rock at its surface. “The minions suck! The statues suck! The—the nooses suck! Everybody here sucks!” She pauses briefly in her tirade when she can’t find another rock close to her, looking around the ground. Suddenly, a rock strikes the tree just behind her, right where her face had been a moment ago, and she yelps.  
  
She looks out at the swamp and squints. One of the spirit hands is making a gesture that looks remarkably like one she’d seen the Conductor making at DJ Grooves on more than one occasion—  
  
“Heya, newbie,” says another voice, nervously, and Hat Kid turns to see Billy standing not too far off. “Guess that bit with the Boss didn’t go so well, did it.”  
  
“No,” Hat Kid mutters, turning back to look at the swamp. Billy plops down beside her.  
  
“Still haven’t found your hat either, huh?”  
  
She shakes her head.  
  
“That’s a shame, kid,” Billy says, with a wince. “What are you going to do now?”  
  
Hat Kid shrugs, kicking her feet against the bank. As sad as she was right now, she wasn’t quite willing to give up on her hat yet. But regardless of whether she found it or not… well, she didn’t have infinite time, no matter how many hourglasses she had. And speaking of those, she really needed to hurry up and collect the rest in case that girl from Mafia Town made good on her threat. She says as much to Billy.  
  
Billy’s eye widens. “Aw, kid, you have to leave?” they ask in dismay. “But…”  
  
Hat Kid nods, still avoiding his luminous stare.  
  
“It isn’t… Cause of the Boss, is it?”  
  
Hat Kid kicks her feet more forcefully against the bank, splashing some of the ooze from the swamp around—or as close to splashing as it could get, anyway. Of course it wasn’t because of Snatcher. As if she’d let some big spaghetti noodle with a goofy face boss her around! Regardless of whether he wanted to be friends or not. Especially if…not.  
  
She wasn’t running away!  
  
But she had to move on. For the sake of getting back home.  
  
Billy sighs. “Oh, kid…” Hat Kid only crosses her arms, and so Billy climbs to their feet. They offer her a hand. “Let’s go see if we can find your hat before you leave, huh?” She blinks at them in surprise, but they only twitch their fingers.  
  
“C’mon, kid,” they insist. “Let’s go talk to the other hangers. Maybe one of them saw where your hat went?”  
  
She takes it, and Billy pulls her to her feet. “Ok. I still gotta go once I get it back, though.”  
  
Together they set off, and one by one, end up freeing the remaining seven or eight hung minions around Subcon. None of them have seen her hat, but (presumably having nothing better to do) they take an interest in her little quest, and soon Hat Kid has a small entourage of minions following her around, peering under logs and into bushes, talking with dwellers, and generally trying their best to aid her. Eventually, a pair of them get the bright idea to split off into the swamp, as they can walk on the slime where she can’t. Then another couple split off into the forest, and another brave soul offers to snoop around the manor. (”Just outside,” they say, not inside, and frankly Hat Kid can’t blame them for that; if the hat had somehow found its way inside the manor it might as well be dead to her.) Soon enough it’s her and Billy and a couple others scattered around, and they agree to meet back up at Subcon Village later on.  
  
Unfortunately, even a couple hours later, Hat Kid and Billy have no luck. They putter back over to the village on Hat Kid’s scooter, not especially excited but just to take the edge off of Hat Kid’s weary feet. A handful of minions are already there, and a couple of them shake their heads nervously. Her heart, previously lightened by the offers of help from the little spirits, begins to fall again.  
  
Billy gives her a light pat on the back. “Don’t loose hope yet! This isn’t even half of them!”  
  
So Hat Kid takes up perch on one of the tree stumps and watches a couple more minions wander in over the course of the next few minutes. One in particular catches her eye; they don’t have her hat, but they seem dazed. She watches them wander from group to group of minions, becoming increasingly distressed, and the others in the group watch them after. A couple of them corner the minion, and she jumps down from her stump and walks over. “I don’t understand what you’re saying!” the minion is wailing, when Hat Kid walks over, and her eyebrows scrunch with confusion. The minion turns to her, and that’s when Hat Kid catches sight of the shiny piece of metal affixed to their hood.  
  
“My badge!” Hat Kid yelps, pointing at it. “You found it! Where did you get that?!”  
  
“What are you saying?” the minion asks, sounding increasingly frustrated. More minions start to gather around them and that’s when Hat Kid remembers that it’s the _Mumble_ Badge for a reason. She points at it, trying to convey the badge’s function, but the other doesn’t seem to understand. Eventually Hat Kid stomps her foot and leaps forward. The minion’s eye widens in alarmed surprise, but Hat Kid is faster, tackling them to the ground and plucking the Mumble badge off of their hood.  
  
“I—I can understand you!” the minion exclaims, closing their eye briefly.  
  
“Thank you!” Hat Kid says, before quickly scrambling up and helping the minion to their feet. “Um, sorry about the, um, tackling…”  
  
“You saved me, kid! I think, anyway. I’m Momo,” the minion introduces themself, meticulously brushing the dirt off of their ragged little poncho-coat.  
  
“Momo,” Hat Kid repeats with a giggle. “Did you see my hat anywhere nearby, Momo?” she asks.  
  
The minion seems to frown, waving their hands about a bit before finally turning their gaze back on Hat Kid. “I don’t think so, newbie. I’m real sorry. Did you lose it?”  
  
Hat Kid’s shoulders slump, and she nods dejectedly. Momo’s eye seems to fall a bit in sympathy. “Hey, uh, don’t feel too bad, kid! Look, um—” They start looking around on the ground, and Hat Kid slumps back over to her tree stump.  
  
Within a few minutes, Momo pops back into view, holding something in their hands. It’s a couple vines strung together, with a bunch of those small white flowers stuck snuggly in between. “Here, kid! I know this flower crown’s not the same as that stylish hat of yours, but… maybe it’ll do for a while?”  
  
Hat Kid takes it with a small, shy smile and puts it on overtop her sprint hat. Momo informs her that she looks fabulous, and Hat Kid giggles, but as time continues to pass, the novelty of the crown begins to wear off. It’s hard to tell with Subcon being so dark all the time, but she’s sure that it must be getting close to dusk. There’s still no sign of her hat.  
  
At this rate, if it hadn’t even been near the badge, she was never going to find it—  
  
But then Billy gasps from behind her, and she turns around to look at whatever he’s looking at, and catches sight of a pair of minions comes racing into the camp. One of them is holding something in their arms, and Hat Kid feels her heart leap into her throat. _Could it be?_ It’s hard to tell. Both minions are covered head to toe in swamp goo, and so is the thing in their arms, but she thinks she catches sight of a flash of gold as they draw near. It—it was certainly hat-shaped—could she dare to hope—?  
  
The minion skids to a stop in front of her, their eye positively beaming. “We found it stuck underneath one of the big thorny roots near the skeleton,” they explain, their chest puffing out with pride. “It was a bit tricky to get ahold of, but we managed, kid!”  
  
Hat Kid gasps in delight when they present a broad, familiar (albeit dirtier) top hat to her, a wide smile overtaking her features. She snatches it from them and brushes off the gunk, and then jams it on her head with enthusiasm. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” she says, grabbing the unsuspecting minion in a hug before jumping and twirling around. Finally she feels complete again! To think she’d been separated from her most favorite hat for almost an entire _day_! There’s some small cheering from the group that’s been assembled.  
  
Hat Kid eventually slows in her spinning, the broad smile receding into something smaller. Now that she has her hat back, well… She’d told Billy she’d be moving on, hadn’t she?  
  
“Are you gonna leave now, kid?” Billy asks nervously, as if he could read her mind. She goes to nod, but a murmur of surprise runs through the collective group.  
  
“Wait, leave?”  
  
“Newbie’s leaving?”  
  
“But you just got here!”  
  
“I gotta go home,” she tries to explain, eyes shifting among the Subconites.  
  
“Where’s home?”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“What’s there?”  
  
“Can’t you just stay here?”  
  
The question catches on her tongue. Well, obviously she had to go home—but explaining it to the minions seemed to be a bit tricky. She’s not sure why she can’t seem to come up with an answer for them. It was just…what she did. What she had been doing for as long as she could remember. Like trying to explain that the sky was blue (though not in Subcon). How did she explain to this little group of one-eyed spirits that it was where she needed to go? “I just… gotta.”  
  
“Awww, really?”  
  
“If you’re sure…”  
  
“How long before you leave?”  
  
“Hey, we should throw a party!” one of the minions exclaims, and Hat Kid’s expression morphs into one of confusion as the other minions immediately pick up on the idea.  
  
“Yeah, let’s have a party for the newbie!”  
  
“We should do a slumber party!”  
  
She hasn’t even managed to figure out yet if they mean a going away party or not, and the slumber party suggestion only sends her further spiraling, especially when the rest of the group murmurs their appreciation. Who’d known that the minions could be so talkative in such large groups? Not her, that was for certain. But… the friendliness of it warms her heart, a little bit, and a tentative smile crosses her face. A slumber party did sound fun, and she’d never had a party before (tea parties with stuffed animals and plushies not withstanding). Maybe… Maybe she could wait just another day. She had to still go to the skyline anyway, so…  
  
“We could… have it on my spaceship,” she suggests shyly. To her delight, the minions all perk up even more at this news. There are several gasps of surprise and even a couple screams, which make her jump a little bit.  
  
“Wow!”  
  
“You have a spaceship?!”  
  
“That’s so cool!”  
  
“Yeah!” Hat Kid says, her smile widening again. “It’s got—a kitchen, and— uh, a slide, and a pool of pillows—”  
  
An excited murmur runs through the group of minions. “Did you say a _pool_ of pillows?” one asks, from somewhere in the back. Hat Kid nods.  
  
“How can you have a _pool_ of pillows?” another minion asks suspiciously.  
  
“It’s got a _diving board_ ,” Hat Kid retorts. There are several “oohs” and “aahs” following this statement, which none of them can seem to argue with. (Most of the minions had never even seen a pool, truthfully, pillows or otherwise. But the diving board sounded impressive.)  
  
“We gotta have it there!” Momo exclaims. “It’s perfect!”  
  
“Yeah, absolutely!”  
  
“Whadya say, newbie?”  
  
Hat Kid looks around at all the wide-eyed minions surrounding her and shrugs, throwing up her hands. “Let’s have a slumber party!”  


End file.
